The Catcher

At a concert this weekend I realized Holden Caulfield was born at the wrong time. System of a Down was playing; it was a totally kick-ass show, very loud, very liberal and rough. The smells of beer, pot, B.O., and disenchantment commingled over the floor of moshing youth. There were crowd-surfers. There were articles of clothing flung at the band.

Watching the action on the floor, I found myself amused by the concert security who lined the front of the stage and rushed to receive anyone at the end of their crowd-surfing run. Sometimes two or even three people would crest the wave at the barricade 10 feet from the stage, snagged and set gently down by these lumbering security guys. And then it occured to me: each of these men is the catcher in the rye. When the playing children run off the edge of that vast field of swaying rye, these men are there to catch them and set them on their way.

Holden, if only you had been born a few decades later. Maybe I would have seen you there. Maybe you would have saved a spot for me.